Why do you ship RodrikxMiraxAsher?
i’ll assume this question is in good faith because a.) this is something i am very excited to answer, and b.) i would hope ttgot’s nonexistent fandom is mature enough to not do the whole condemnation thing anymore. but regardless of intent, thank you for the ask nonetheless! it’s been a while since i’ve had a chance to answer something.
to be blunt, incest and incestous relationships have always interested me in fiction ( for both analytical and personal reasons ), but i’ve found myself especially intrigued by asoiaf’s portrayal of said taboo -- with your most prominent examples being both the entire targaryen family and the lannister twins, cersei and jaime. although there is more incest found in asoiaf, these two sides demonstrate the extremities of incest and two of the most prominent reasons it can exist: ethnic purity and childhood trauma. the targaryens are cut and dry royalty of a divine and magical bloodline, and thus believe intermarrying is the way to maintain total control over their dragons, as well as keeping their blood pure. the silver-hair and violet/purple eyes of targaryens become recessive if mixed with westeroi blood, and these are their most iconic features that persists long after the death of dragons -- meaning that anything less than that is inherently less ‘targaryen’. breeding brother to sister, uncle to niece, and so on is about cultivating and strengthening their bloodline ( their literal house words are ‘fire and blood’ ), and by design remaining separate from the rest of their kingdom. obviously, we see the negative affects of this ethnic purity fairly easily, especially in how it’s used to control and chain down targaryen women, who are more beholden to the incestous traditions than men are: as incest and patriarchal societies go hand-in-hand more than people would initially believe.
here is dany in the first book, and in her first chapter, reaffirming the reasons for incestous marriage in targaryen history :
She had always assumed that she would wed Viserys when she came of age. For centuries the Targaryens had married brother to sister, since Aegon the Conqueror had taken his sisters to bride. The line must be kept pure, Viserys had told her a thousand times; theirs was the kingsblood, the golden blood of old Valyria, the blood of the dragon. Dragons did not mate with the beasts of the field, and Targaryens did not mingle their blood with that of lesser men. Yet now Viserys schemed to sell her to a stranger, a barbarian.
she has spent most of her life as a young girl believing viserys, her brother and her king, would take her to bride eventually -- as is targaryen tradition, and especially more prudent now when they’re the last drops of dragon blood. similarly, she looks upon her betrothal to khal drago with disdain, as if being sold to khal as a bride is lesser than being viserys’.
there is also this fairly famous quote from fire & blood about queen naerys targaryen, which many people have pointed out in order to highlight how damaging these traditions are on women specifically :
Childbirth also proved a trial to Naerys, for she was small and delicate. When Prince Daeron was born on the last day of 153 AC, Grand Maester Alford warned that another pregnancy might kill her. Naerys was said to address her brother thus: "I have done my duty by you, and given you an heir. I beg you, let us live henceforth as brother and sister." We are told that Aegon replied: "That is what we are doing." Aegon continued to insist his sister perform her wifely duties for the rest of her life.
this intermingling of incest with the patriarchy ( ie: women are objects, they are things a relative is entitled to, and thus any platonic barriers fall away so as to serve men more fully ) is something you also see in cersei’s character, for she has consistently faced the brunt of consequence where it concerns her incest with jaime. she is the one paraded through the streets of king’s landing, shaved and naked, for her ‘sins’ and she’s the one who consistently hears the degrading term, ‘brotherfucker,’ whereas jaime never even gets one ‘sisterfucker’.
“Leave her, Your Grace," Cersei called out to the king, "she's beyond our help, poor thing."
The mother heard her. Somehow the queen's voice cut through the woman's ravaged wits. Her slack face twisted in loathing. "Whore!" she shrieked. "Kingslayer's whore! Brotherfucker!" Her dead child dropped from her arms like a sack of flour as she pointed at Cersei. "Brotherfucker brotherfucker brotherfucker."
and here, during cersei’s walk of atonement :
The shouting seemed louder here than on the plaza, perhaps because the mob was so much closer. "Whore" and "sinner" were most common, but "brotherfucker" and "cunt" and "traitor" were flung at her as well, and now and again she heard someone shout out for Stannis or Margaery.
not to imply that cersei didn’t bring a majority of her sept troubles upon herself, as she very much did, but what she reaped deservingly also came with bearing her’s and jaime’s incest unfairly, as she’s consistently done for most of the books. there is no incest that is free of the patriarchy, for like all else, the feminine parties are either blamed for their spoiled virtue and depravity, or subjected to metaphorical confinement within their bodies and whoever’s in charge of them ( husband/brother/uncle/father -- the jailors carry different titles, for it matters not when they’re all powerful men ).
this is not to discredit cersei’s and jaime’s incest, however. while the patriarchy certainly plays into their relationship, their entanglement has always been a choice they made. unlike the targaryens, westeros as a whole shuns and abhors most immediate forms of incest ( siblings and parent/child pairs, most notably -- for cousins are fine and extremely common ), meaning that neither cersei nor jaime has ever lived under the crushing expectation of eventually coupling. this is important to them both, as this demonstration of personhood and the illusion of choice is integral to them romanticizing their taboo relationship. while they both integrate targaryen incestous ideas into their bond, that is merely them following an historical roadmap to both comfort themselves and to hope for a more open, ideal life. unlike the targaryens, cersei and jaime wish to couple because they have developed very fantastical views about their twinhood as a result of incest ( ‘we are one person in two bodies. we shared a womb together’ / ‘we will die together as we were born together’ / etc. ), and so there is no true desire therein to marry and procreate as a means of persevering their lannister blood … in fact, cersei repeatedly looks down on jaime as lesser than her and believes herself to be the only true son tywin ever had. so, all their feelings and relations are devoid of targaryen’s ethnic purity, which swings towards another phenomenon.
in this quote, jaime recalls an integral moment between him and cersei as very young children :
Long before his sister's flowering or the advent of his own manhood, they had seen mares and stallions in the fields and dogs and bitches in the kennels and played at doing the same. Once their mother's maid had caught them at it . . . he did not recall just what they had been doing, but whatever it was had horrified Lady Joanna. She'd sent the maid away, moved Jaime's bedchamber to the other side of Casterly Rock, set a guard outside Cersei's, and told them that they must never do that again or she would have no choice but to tell their lord father.
this, plain and simple, is two very close children playing at what they’re seeing. what they’re doing is still concerning, most certainly, and should be supervised or discouraged by an adult, but not punished. after all, jaime could not even recall what they’d be doing, and can only truly remember the horrifed reactions it garnered alongside a harsh punishment of seperation and threats of telling tywin. all of which he recalls as ‘fearful’, as he later thinks about how they didn’t need to fear, for their mother died soon after ( intense much? ).
it isn’t uncommon for children to discover sex very young, in fact it’s considered just a ‘part of the process’ as early as three, and it isn’t even abnormal for a child to engage with relatives of a similar age. usually, these endeavors are fueled entirely by a child’s curiosity -- there isn’t anything sexual about them yet, and is more about soothing and/or learning than anything else. but in a world where sexuality is linear, limited, and always being controlled in women, it is natural that any evidence of this behavior would be met with the same strongarming and disgust as lady joanna. children’s natural inclinations have no standing in a society that seeks to control and groom them from birth.
so what makes cersei’s and jaime’s actions problematic and incestous is the continuation of these activities, and most importantly, the uptake in aggression and severity. before, they were merely ‘playing’, but as we see of their sex life as early as agot, they have taken to building their sexual actions around a forceful system. the discourse over who’s raping who in jamie/cersei is redundant because that is merely their sexual dynamic: it is how they’ve learned to have one another as they want, with both of them inherently inviting manipulation, brute force, and other unsavory, coercive means into the very core of their bond. they both do not believe that the other person can reject them, which only adds to this kind of entitled behavior ; where neither feel bad for ignoring the other’s disinterest or straight up ‘no’s, because that simply doesn’t matter when they’re basically ‘one body’, as they wholly believe. for all their romanticizing, i think it’s telling that the depictions of their couplings are always rough, violating, and despairing. when they are bare and stripped of their finery and all the fancy delusions they repeatedly feed themselves and others, we see plain and simple the crux of their incest. a thing dictated by power play, yes, but also a warped version of comfort.
i don’t think it’s a stretch to say that their incest is used as a self soothing gesture primarily! jaime’s addiction to cersei is powered by many things, but his need to return to the comfort she provides via her body and that sense of belonging is a strong one. and even though we know that sexual relations between jaime/cersei are a rough affair, certainly comparable or perhaps even worse than the relations cersei has had with other men, cersei still has this to say: “It was still no good. It had never been any good with anyone but Jaime”. for a woman who’s entire life has been managed without her say-so, it isn’t shocking that she finds an unending well of comfort in choosing, continuously, to couple with her brother -- for no matter how violent it may be, it is still something cersei chose. when they feel low, they think of one another and replenish themselves: on memory, on inclinations of a false future, on each other and what the other is providing for them. this self soothing repetition is why they’ve come to romanticize every facet of themselves and their bond, as it adds to the comfort they’re deriving from their incest. with a father like tywin, and the horrible lives they’ve lived in where they’ve witnessed countless horrid acts and have had horrible deeds done upon themselves, is it any wonder that their incest has become a balm for them both? where the violence is controlled and can never hurt you, and at least the man/woman you’re stuck with is beyond familiar? i could go on and on about jaime and cersei, and how sexual violence is the norm with the lannisters, and how even incest is normalized to a degree, when considering tywin’s and joanna’s coupling as well as the incestous, sexual violence tywin does upon tyrion, a sexual violence to which cersei copies young ( “When I commented that you seemed a poor sort of monster, your sister said, 'He killed my mother,' and twisted your little cock so hard I thought she was like to pull it off.” — Oberyn Martell, ASOS ), and tyrion’s later desires to rape cersei, but that is a whole 50k post in its own making and i’m sure many posts regarding house lannister’s meshing of violence, sexuality, and family are already out there to read!
i mainly bring up the targaryens and lannisters to explain the types of canonical incest we see in the books ( and show, i suppose, to a lesser degree ) as understanding it is integral to shipping incest with westeros as a backdrop. i also mention those examples to make it clear i don’t ship the eldest three forresters together blindly … for while i do have shallow reasons for enjoying them, i am just as fascinated by what this says about the characters, their relationships to one another, and so on. in fact, the incest is used as a character study device for them more often than not, especially for asher.
for some background, right after i first finished episode six, i was in a very odd, intense state regarding the game. my life, also, was rather stressful and unmoored at the time. i had a lot of feelings to sort through and my grasp on the game was weak, and in this teetering state of unknowing fixation, i naturally took to ao3 for my troubles and tore through most of the fanfic available. usually i avoid most works until i’ve fleshed out the characters and dynamics on my lonesome ( for i find fanon influence to be detrimental to my personal experience ), but seeing as i wasn’t expecting to linger, i had some formative reading that colored my views in later replays and analysis. one of these fics in particular, lament of the secondborn, had a large influence with me. while i don’t necessarily adhere to many of the portrayals and takes within the fanfic itself, it had provided an interesting thought experiment: asher plagued by charged feelings about a sibling, and the ways this could reshape his character and story ( it also introduced me to my first real ship of ttgot, asher/mira, which hooked me just enough to stick around ; and i’m still so curious as to where this ship originated from! ). but prudent influence and humble beginnings aside, i just think there are a surprising amount of canonical scenes you can take and read into re: incest, for asher, and for both rodrik and mira. for the sake of brevity, and because the length of this post has certainly far exceeded what i expected it to be, i will be focusing solely on asher, but rest assured that there are rich discussions to be had about all three of these characters re: incest.
i have already briefly talked about the wasted potential of asher’s character where it concerns his canonical inappropriate relationships with his siblings ( beskha especially included ) in this post, but i wanted to elaborate upon how exploring the darker aspects of asher's inappropriate relationships looks like in a practical sense. i find that many of the forrester bonds are rather vague due to how little the playable siblings engage with one another, or even so much as talk about one another. it leaves a lot to be desired and gives you almost too much room for interpretation … however, i find that taking preexisting, canonical bonds and potentially connecting them to these sibling dynamics to be enlightening. to view particular characters as a ‘stand-in’ for a forrester. this is not to devalue those original relationships or the character themselves, but to heighten something else that’s lacking, and thus creating a multi-layered thing as a result. it is not uncommon for characters to repeat relationships, especially subconsciously … asher, for example, is consistently what i’ll call a ‘replacer / replicater’: where he is more prone to echoing dynamics and being drawn towards the familiar than most.
from an early, formative age, asher has struggled with the attention, love, and approval of his father. we are never told why that is, or what exactly was transpiring pre-canon, but we know from the codex and vague musings that gregor is a deeply controversial figure for the exiled forrester. there is a strong implication that asher felt neglected to some degree, seeing as he began engaging in violent activities for his father’s attention ( ‘finding ways to raise his father’s ire’ sounds particularly attention-seeking, as the implication of a child / young teenager wanting to sic an enranged adult on themselves is hardly self-preserving ). activities that included two extremes of exhibiting violence and sexuality via whoring … a testament to asher’s supposed volatile nature, perhaps, but also an indication of poor emotional management and regulation. this gregor-shaped hole within asher is one that dictates every one of his relationships, in a variety of ways, but most importantly it is his first brush with replacement. in lieu of his father’s paternal affections, asher was given his uncle, malcolm, as a guiding and supportive force. he understands this enough to tell beskha plainly, “he practically raised me!”, because him and his father ‘didn’t get along’. it could be implied to some degree that ser royland also fulfilled this role for asher too, seeing as royland clearly favors asher to rodrik and, like malcolm, believes in asher’s capacity to lead as a lord of ironrath. both malcolm and ser royland are war hardened men who favor timely battle and bluntness, as opposed to gregor’s and duncan’s more subtle, diplomatic ways, but if they loved asher like a son they never had, then it was good enough for him. or so he’d think.
so, what we have is a young boy who grows up being othered by his father, and a boy who replicates a father/son bond with older men available to him, intentionally or otherwise. he will internalize this as a survival tactic -- a way to brace against the brunt of emotional pain without thinking, because a temporary fix is better than living with the full hole he’s stuck with. this early, positive experience with replacement is important because of beskha ; because beskha, quite textually, is rodrik. she fulfills a similar role to asher as rodrik did, to the point she personally relates to an old rodrik-asher story from asher’s ironrath days :
they both are the only elder siblings asher has, and it is said, explicitly by canon, that he had behaved in a similar manner with them both. it also knocks down any pre-existing notion of rodrik being too ‘above’ or ‘mature’ for asher’s more unruly behaviors -- as there is little innocent about sneaking out of ironrath to get drunk with tittering girls that asher knew -- which means there are parallels between beskha and rodrik themselves as well. i cannot help but notice how beskha’s faded scars are on her left cheek, in the same vein as rodrik’s new and sudden scarring. or how beskha’s mouth always quirks to one side when she smiles, the exact same side as rodrik’s when he manages some light joy. while some of these are not things asher could’ve accounted for ( the scarring, most notably ), the overlap of physical, shallow similarities and the more profound role they both hold within him are interesting nonetheless … and add to this sort of ‘inescapable’ dynamic that asher has with his family, but most importantly his siblings, whom he is unable to shake or put aside.
speaking of beskha’s and rodrik’s roles, the hold they have on him is all-encompassing and horribly codependent. again, we are not privy to anything about asher’s views or relationship with rodrik throughout most of the game, but if we analyze his and beskha’s dynamic, and deign to understand her as filling a rodrik-shaped hole, there is suddenly so much more. beskha, to be blunt, is asher’s everything. he has spent every day beside her since coming to essos and orbits around her, her word, and her lifestyle religiously. when she says they’ll spend all their gold on whores, beds without fleas, and whatever aimless, fanciful stuff she desires, asher does not disagree outside of emphasizing precaution, if you choose. when he, impulsively, talks of using the money to return to ironrath, and beskha firmly reminds him of what they have going here in essos, asher is quick to surrender and drop any further mention. both of them sort of defer and behave submissively ( in their own brutish ways ) to one another, which is unique to them i think, but i bring it up because asher is not a naturally submissive person.
on top of this reverence, asher is fiercely protective of beskha … a trait he shares for any of his siblings, as we’re told, but his specific brand of it is much different to the brutality we’re told via the miller’s boy story. when croft is, rightfully, telling beskha off for getting piss drunk before a job, asher ( in two out of the three dialogue options ) gets irritated about this meddling. he defends beskha, he snaps at croft, insinuating croft is being annoying for pushing this so hard, or straight up telling the man to mind his own business … it is only after croft leaves that asher actually gets on beskha himself, worried for her, asking after her strange behavior, which leads to a scene where she’s wailing on him and asher, if you choose, just takes this. asher forrester, constantly regaled for his violence, just lays there and takes physical blows and is all but baring his neck to beskha’s blade, her rage, because he won’t put his hands on her. it’s insanely trusting, but also goes against a.) what we know of asher, who is so adapt in fighting that he cuts off a man’s hand as an instinctive response, and b.) regular self-preservation skills that anyone would have, loved one or not. this is a scene that’s as sweet as it is dreadful, for what asher and beskha have is beautiful and important, yes, but also a bond that neither of them navigate in a healthy manner. beskha rules asher’s life, as he rules hers. beskha could beat asher bloody and he’d just let her, and their relationship would probably not change an inch for it. asher could choose his blood family over beskha, a fear she has and one that can come true in-game, and she will still upend her whole life for his personal mission.
the codependency is overt and makes complete sense, for how are they expected to navigate their relationship, when all their previous ones have been unhealthy? beskha has befriended fellow slaves her whole life, ones she had to kill, and ones she had to leave, and asher … it always comes back to his side of things, because his past is blank save for the codex and general ironrath background. so where do all these tendencies come from? if asher is mimicking a previous relationship, one from his past that he’s actively repressing consciously, but like beskha, is reliving subconsciously, then who was that relationship? hint: the game makes it clear in episode six during rodrik’s route, although there’s a much bigger, much more undeniable hint at the end of episode five.
we are told, briefly, in episode two that asher and beskha have some sort of pact: one forged in ‘together till we’re dead’. it is an off-hand comment that could mean anything, a weightless, warm remark on beskha’s end to highlight how close they are, and to remind asher of her devotion … but this comment is recontextualized in episode five, if you have asher stay behind. beskha is hysterical: she is screaming and raging at him from the other side of the gate, in perhaps the most emotional scene in the whole game. she says as follows :
“You bastard! You’re fucking leaving me? What the fuck am I supposed to do? I came here for you! We’re supposed to fight together, always. Die together.”
this was not some off-the-cuff saying, but an actual, fully realized understanding between them both. for beskha, asher dying by himself is a betrayal to her, a personal affront. it is something that should not happen, under any circumstance, because it is selfish of asher to leave her alone. asher is not surprised by any of this, nor rattled by beskha’s outburst, so this is not news to him. i think it’s understandable to write this off as beskha simply being upset that she came to westeros for a man who’s leaving her alone ( “i came here for you!” ) but given all we know about their relationship, i truly believe this is applicable to any scenario they could’ve winded up in. it is not being alone in westeros that scares beskha, it is being alone without asher that she cannot take. her life should end where asher’s does. she should not have to live on without him, or he without her. there are many layers to this for beskha, who is a survivor of many traumas ( and a woman with survivor’s guilt ; who notably hates herself for choosing to live over others ), but this post isn’t technically, wholly about her and asher, so i want to move on and highlight something that drives me crazy.
in light of this ‘pact’ that asher and beskha have ( “We’re supposed to fight together, always / Die together” ), there is a scene where rodrik and asher … do just that. straight up, they fight together and then die together. i have talked about this scene here and there on my blog, but i still cannot overstate how ludicrous it is, especially in this situation. rodrik, the lord of ironrath, the cripple who’s kept his house together through gritted teeth, the man who has never shied away from his responsibilities or duties, quite literally suggests that they both kill themselves to ‘buy time’ for their army to get away. it is so stupid, it is such a flimsy, useless excuse, for their will be no ironrath without a lord to lead it, and yet rodrik says it anyways with a smirk, and asher takes to it instantly with a smile of his own. much like with beskha’s outburst, asher is not surprised by this suggestion from rodrik, not like we are as the player -- in fact, he acts as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. they both understand that they will die here. somewhere, they must understand that they’re fucking over ironrath, their remaining family, elaena, and whoever else by deciding to both be killed in a whitehill ambush, of all things.
and they grin and fight anyway, their corpses laid side by side right before you get your game-over. rodrik and asher can actually achieve the ending beskha is robbed of in this route and rodrik’s, which completely cinches everything for me personally. we know from how fondly asher and rodrik talk of one another that they were close as boys, but it is through analyzing beskha that we understand just how close they really were. close in a way that’s violently codependent. a way that says ‘my life and yours are the same, and therefore must extinguish at the same time’, which robs them both of personhood. a way that fundamentally goes against key elements of their characters, because the relationship itself is more important than any sort of individuality.
you may notice that these beliefs and mindsets align eerily well with the mindsets that cersei and jaime share in the books, which is not a coincidence. these sorts of intense and codependent family bonds are forged through childhood trauma and are a coping mechanism learned for survival purposes. in cases where parents are neglectful, overly concerned with appearances, extremely strict, or otherwise, it becomes far more common for children to develop inappropriate relationships with members of their family in an attempt to gain the safety and stability not afforded to them by their parents. actually, i think the forresters as a unit demonstrate a small mix of both lannister and targaryen forms of incest. with cousin marriages being allowed and commonplace, i operate under the assumption that forresters primarily intermarry within their bloodline -- to better keep a strong monopoly on their ironwood and the blood that connects them to it. while the whitehills are indeed greedy, vicious, and do not respect the wood, i also believe there’s merit in them claiming that the forresters hoard what they have. why wouldn’t they? they are the best producers of ironwood, factually, and have the biggest share of this valuable, goldmine of a resource in their backyard. it is what forresters are known for, and there’s mythology attached to their deep, otherworldy bond with it ( see: “ironwood doesn’t burn easily, but forresters have a way,” comment ). given elsera’s use of blood magic and the inherent spirituality attached to their funeral customs for forresters ( essentially feeding their dead to the groves and allowing their bodies to become ironwood trees themselves ), i don’t think it’s crazy to assume that forresters do carry themselves with a minor degree of ethnic superiority. they could, very easily, subconsciously believe their blood to be stronger. they could, just as easily, take the easy routes of intermarrying between cousins to ensure strength in the blood and to not spread their ironwood share thin. after all, the price for any forrester brides or forrester sons to greater houses would be an ironwood-shaped sum. it’s their richest asset that any house would want. you even see rodrik negotiate half the forest to win elaena’s hand, something he didn’t want to do yet knew would win her over ( and it did! as elaena says, that’s worth a fortune ). the very beginning of the game says that many houses seek to claim ironwood for themselves. so, with the commonplace of ‘my family is more important than others’ ideals and the normalcy given to cousin incest specifically within the family, this is breeding grounds for potential wire crossing and feelings. how the forresters are living their lives are different than the average nobleman or noblewoman. but i digress!
knowing what we know about the similarities between asher's relationships with beskha and rodrik, we come to the revelation that asher’s relationship with siblings is fundamentally skewed and unhealthy. his dynamic with beskha is not unique, but rather the norm where it concerns his sibling bonds. you start with rodrik, whom asher likely had a very intense and codependent relationship with, and you end up with a man who sees that as typical -- enough so to subconsciously replicate it in the future with a non-blood relative whom he does view as an older sibling figure. rodrik was asher’s blueprint for these things. so immediately asher’s feelings towards siblings as a whole are abnormal, inappropriate, and all-consuming. this lines up nicely with the miller’s boy story, where asher is recalled as having beaten a boy in a stroke of violence for the sole crime of ‘tormenting ethan’ :
“Do you remember the miller's boy? How he tormented you... I wanted to intervene, but you father said 'Ethan must fight his own battles.' But when Asher saw it, he didn't take a breath. He grabbed the miller's boy by the neck. That was his first instinct. Asher knocked out half the boy's teeth. Of course your father was furious, but you were in danger and there was nothing else Asher needed to know.”
this is not a normal, well-adjusted reaction to seeing a young sibling being bullied. this goes beyond asher being your standard, protective older brother. many details are left nebulous and to the imagination, but due to the age-gaps between at least rodrik and asher versus the younger three forrester children, it can at least be inferred that asher was likely well into teenhood when he viciously attacked this boy. it can also be assumed that this boy was likely around ethan’s age, so very much a child indeed, and that ‘torment’ can mean anything: if we are to take ethan’s more delicate, fragile nature into account, it could have been mean words and some shoving, tripping, what-have-you. after all, i doubt gregor ( for all his bad parenting ) would’ve just let ethan be beaten publicly by a smallfolk. so we must assume this bullying was minor and not a cause of major concern for either gregor or elissa, who listened to her husband and didn’t intervene. these were likely actions of minor offense by a boy who could be easily scared off or frightened, most like, and yet asher had a disproportionate reaction nonetheless. his first instinct being to grab a child by their neck and to violently beat them is … a severe, abnormal reaction to what asher likely saw. i mean, elissa is recounting this tale as a reason to send for asher during a time of war, basically using the violence therein as evidence to asher’s prowess in fighting and his thirst to protect the twins by any means necessary ( “He’s a skilled fighter ( … ), he has the will to fight. A hunger for it,” ).
this protection borders on possession, i think, and controls asher entirely. it effects how he views the world and shutters him into an all-or-nothing attitude. and despite ethan’s and talia’s mixed feelings of asher now, they have been influenced by his smothering presence in their childhood. when ethan says this, i cannot help but realize this is exactly how asher thinks and operates :
and talia later echoes similar sentiments. these thoughts are born out of the confused, angry grief of a pubescent teen girl in a constant state of stress, it’s true, but it is asher’s anger, his utter and complete violence that acted as protection for the twins during formative years, being spoken in talia’s voice nonetheless :
again, we understand ethan and talia to be characters who not only dislike violence, but whose very characters are opposed to it ( with ethan being a more overt example, considering that it's brought up that he doesn't know how to fight ). these thoughts and sentiments are not in their usual nature, meaning it has been taught to them inadvertently, or even purposefully, and been internalized in spite of more docile personas. they, like asher has, have now taken violent, unhealthy ideals involving siblinghood and live by it as if these are normal standards. i talk about this more for ethan’s character here, which i suggest reading as well. asher’s influence goes far in the twins, and it’s ( again ) through their characters we can further piece together asher’s warped relationship with his brothers and sisters.
as an aside, these borderline possessive behaviors of asher is well-known to even the whitehills. ludd specifically utilizes ryon to keep asher in-line and tries placating him with rodrik’s intact corpse. specific threats or mockery regarding rodrik or ethan are absent on ludd’s and gryff’s lips ( which, given what they do to asher’s body in rodrik’s route, is a purposeful avoidance on their end! ) and they instead only mock asher’s fraught relationship with his father and asher’s general character. ethan in particular is often mentioned and mocked by the whitehills, gryff and ludd included in saying his name with implied insult once or twice, but in asher’s route he is never said by name unless by asher himself. it is almost like ludd and gryff are either scared or wary of triggering some sort of rageful fit in asher; one specifically tied to how touchy he is about his siblings specifically. the implications this has … asher, known for being particularly scary and ruthless where his siblings are concerned. asher, known to be controlled by his siblings, even to the enemy. asher, likely having these violent outbursts everywhere about his siblings, and making it an aspect of his identity. ( an identity further dictated by this, given his most important relationship being beskha! ).
i could keep rambling about this topic, for there is ample evidence of asher’s ‘queerness’ over his brothers and sisters. there are many aspects and canon scenes i haven’t blabbed about yet, but this post is getting ungodly long and i feel obligated to move forward.
now that we’ve established asher’s intense, unhealthy dynamics and views in regards to his siblings, i think exploring an incestous avenue for him isn’t at all unfounded. codependency, due to the all-encompassing grip it has on a person, can easily leak into being romantic and sexual inclinations even if that’s not how one would truly feel if moved away from that codependent bond. asher, someone who was already and eagerly sexually engaging with women at brothels at likely a young age, getting his wires crossed and accidentally seeking out partners who look like his siblings, or thinking of said siblings during an intimate, sexually charged moment, does not seem far-fetched to me whatsoever. if he is always thinking of them, they’re bound to slip into places they shouldn’t. you see this with gwyn whitehill, for she is of a much similar temperament to rodrik and mira … serious, dutiful, reserved and more icy than she is warm, nonsensical, etc. she, like mira, is a woman who cares about her own agency and desires a station more befitting of a lord than a daughter. she, like mira and rodrik, is the apple of her father’s eye. she, like mira, a woman who will use and manipulate others to get her desired outcome. gwyn is hardly asher, or anyone similar to him … but she is overtly familiar to him in the ways she overlaps with rodrik and mira, and the implications of that are interesting.
( asher’s not the only one like this, either! i’ve seen fans talk about elaena seeming a better match for asher given their fire-like personalities and ways of handling conflict, and other fans talking about elaena reminding them of talia, essentially implying that rodrik is just as drawn to people who mimick his siblings as asher is. mira is also the same … her top potential options for romance, aka the ones that the narrative implies for all but two seconds, are always, without fail, blonde men with beards. you watch as mira sees damien, sputters to a stop, and lingers on him for a brief second before descending the steps. you then have morgryn, who many fans loved entertaining as a romance option for mira, and whom mira does fixate on to a degree and seeks for ‘protection’, as she often does with men ; all while subconsciously thinking of asher given her essos interest that follows mira throughout her plot … what this says for all three of them is fascinating, but i’ll leave further analysis of what this means for rodrik and mira to @lost-lords, who you should ask about the ship as well! they’re my go-to expert in regards to rodrik and mira and all their inner workings )
frankly, how i portray, analyze, and write asher is based on my headcanon that he crossed his wires, hard, and is desperately trying to outrun these feelings. although we have no evidence of this canonically, it is a headcanon i think is supported via asher’s behavior and general character! it’s another way to read him, so to speak, and it’s just my favorite way to do so. i do follow the ‘lament of the secondborn’s thesis and see him as developing a sickly sort of crush on mira when she’s young. asher, like almost all men in asoiaf, is not exempt from misogyny ( especially not, given his whoring and sexualization of women ), and so the first time he ever sees a girl as a person is mira. his sex life and love life are two very different things given his typical codependent nature, which means he was sort of ‘doomed’ to fall in love with his sister -- in the throes of puberty, general asher-typical intensity, and obsession re: mira, there was an easy bleed from platonic love to romantic, and then to sexual. he ‘loves’ mira, and for asher, that is everything to him … the boundaries began blurring as asher is prone to disregard or overstep them anyway, and what was once simple now no longer is. i ship mira/asher because, in many ways, she was his first love, and asher is tormented about it. he is plagued by guilt and shame for what he was forced to realize, and then started punishing himself and isolating as a result. to me, this is the start of asher’s ‘gwyn arc’, where he spends the last two years or so in ironrath miserable and always in a state of irritation :
i view rodrik similarly growing miserable, stern, and suddenly caring more about his lordling status as a reaction to asher’s odd behavior. it’s important to note that these attitudes were noticeable to even the twins, and from talia’s implications, neither rodrik nor asher were ever the same afterwards: they remained distant or warped figures in the twins’ lives, and talia has no idea what happened, she can only vaguely assume the catalyst. whoever rodrik and asher were before their new ‘serious’ and ‘angry’ personas ( which is how they’re both remembered by multiple people in episode one ) are nothing but an old, fond memory. i suppose one can assume asher’s acting this way due to seeing gwyn, but for him to not even spare his siblings in his violent, stormy uptake would have me sooner believing that asher, for whatever reason, is at odds with a sibling. if he were having inappropriate feelings towards mira, who isn’t even mentioned here mind you, then i think this anger that’s seeping into everything makes sense. he is angry at himself, at his brothers and sisters, and cannot talk, fight, nor fuck these feelings out of his system ; he is haunted everywhere at home, and his only safety and love inside ironrath ( his siblings ) has turned into another hurt or betrayal. and when there’s an absence, we know asher will seek to fill it.
enter gwyn, whom i do think asher genuinely came to love and care for, but she still served as a distraction from home -- as a mira, or a rodrik, or some hybrid of both that he could have and touch however he wished. he replaces his closest relationships -- his intensely codependent bond with rodrik and his sexual and romantic feelings for mira -- for his first real love story. the danger gwyn brings if he’s found out pales in comparison to what asher would have wrought if anyone were to realize what he was harboring for mira … which is important, because i truly think the ‘asher just got with gwyn to piss off gregor’ takes are a tad foolish. he already had ways to get under his father’s skin, and besides, he likely had the same distaste for whitehills as any other forrester child did. and while he notoriously doesn’t care for the consequences of his actions, asher does understand what could be reaped -- it’s just that his apathy and impulsivity win out. i can much sooner see him using gwyn as escapism and understanding her to be the better consequence than him endangering himself, gwyn, and his entire house for a man who … asher didn’t want finding out about it? there was no rubbing his affair in anyone’s face. it was a secret, which meant asher’s reasons weren’t a performance and that he wasn’t engaging in his attention-seeking behaviors.
anyway, i’m looking at the length of this monster and am actively grimacing. i really don’t feel like i’ve covered everything ( for my thoughts, feelings, analysis, and headcanons about this are infinitely vast ), but i don’t think i can go on any longer with this post specifically. much of this was preamble about incest in westeros, some character study that’s integral to how i view asher and the value familial relationships have in his life, and so on … this is quite frankly a frankenstein’s monster of a thousand different good parts stitched together in madness and i apologize! i got very wrapped up in laying the groundwork for why would and thusly didn’t talk about much of why i ship these individual ships. i suppose because i think it makes them all more interesting as a result? because it narratively and canonically fits for asher’s character? because it ties in well with the angst of the narrative and the overall story theme of losing your childhood innocence? of wanting desperately to return to that nostalgic time where things were simple, and you were outside amongst the groves with naught but siblings and friends for company, and nothing dark or horrid could touch you?
i like it because rodrik, asher, and mira are three puzzle pieces that click and i wish people explored them and their bonds more, so why not make them a ship: why not make all three of them and what they had the foundation that their entire lives stand on? i like them for shallow, selfish reasons -- i find them attractive and they’re my three favorites, so why not make the barbies kiss inside their harsh society? why not explore what that kiss would mean? why not spend hours of my time driving myself crazy with thoughts of where every action and thought comes from? why shouldn’t i think endlessly about both gregor’s and elissa’s bad parenting and why this would cause intense dependency in these relationships? i ship them because it makes sense and because it makes playing the game enjoyable. it makes writing enjoyable. i ship them because i truly think aspects of this are canonically supported by the game … even if you do not read asher’s feelings as romantic or sexual, they are still so intense that he can barely control himself. even in a lesbian mira portrayal ( which i like and find valid! ), she is closer to her elder brothers than most would be, and looks for asher in men and is plagued by him specifically even in her darkest moment. rodrik can, on his own volition ( as you only get this scene if you refuse to make a choice ), prioritize dying with asher with the biggest smirk on his face over saving ironrath or seeing his remaining family again. these behaviors and feelings towards one another border on codependent and have not lessened with time nor physical distance. honestly, i ship them because i take what’s occasionally implied and merely elaborate upon it in a more specific lens. and that makes the game, the characters, and their relationships infinitely more pleasing to me!
